Jim Vane - World War II veteran

The outbreak of war

Yes. I remember my parents talking about it, and they thought that it wouldn't last as long as World War 1 did, but they thought the way things were and that in six-months time to twelve-months time it'd be over. I heard that in many sources, but it didn't plan out that way, of course.

Yes. Things started to get tight. What I mean tight, things started to go to be used with the forces and foodstuff started to be channeled into that respect, and clothing and all that too, as I remember.

Air Training Corps

I was a member of the air-training corps for about eight months before I was eighteen ... We used to meet once a week there and train how to march, and various things, so we wouldn't know anything about it. But, yes, their training corps, and through them, I put my application in to join the air force and a week before I was eighteen, I went down to have an interview and a medical, down to Sydney, and then two weeks after I was eighteen, I called up … My pick of the three, that was my pick. Not because I liked the uniform or what they did, as far as the Navy was concerned, I couldn't see myself being right out there and lonely in the sea out there on a boat. Not me.

Recruitment

Recruitment centre Wooloomooloo in Sydney and I reported there in the morning, and I put me through a medical and other things. In the afternoon we'll be given a blanket and an over-coat, and taken out and put on a double-decker bus, and turned up to Central and put on a train.

After we went out to Tocumwal, that's way out in the Murray. That's where the recruitment was. We went out there for three weeks, training, marching, about turn, all them things, shooting a rifle, doing it hard, what they call a bivouac, and you come back and we're ready then to go to a course on training, or something like that.

Discipline

Uh, discipline, I'd never met discipline before, and we had to abide by it, marching, and get in line when you're marching. We got to know left turn, right turn. Which was our left and our right, and there's always somebody that made the wrong turn, and that type of discipline, and getting up in the morning.

Where we went, it was very cold. I grew up in the centre where very few frosts were in wintertime, but I got up on the first morning, and lo and behold, the wire on the fence was all white as far as you could see, it was that damn cold, and a little westerly wind blowing. All them things were so different to home, you know?

Leave

We worked two weeks, and after the second week, we had the weekend off. We could catch the train from Laverton into Melbourne, and if we were good boys we got away early on the Friday afternoon, and we had Saturday and Sunday free in Melbourne, which was all an experience to me. I'd never been in the city before, getting about and all that type of thing. We would see how city people live, the trams and the buses, different life.

We used to go swimming. Not all the time, quite often we went in one day or one afternoon and we used to go ice-skating in that area of St. Kilda they have an ice-skating rink and we'd go up there and meet some girls. We were that age in there that, yes, we liked the girls' company, and we used to go up there. It was very good there.

And, of course, the races, I can remember we went to the races at Flemington. Caught the train out there and got off, and that was an experience. All the people rushing here and rushing there to get on the trams and trains and come home again. Bookmakers are calling things all a new life to us country boys, never seen anything like this before.

There's a song that. In Arthur Murray's dance studios. Some nice girls there. They taught us a few steps in dancing. Course we were servicemen, we didn't have to pay. That's in daytime, you know, but night-time... they had classes in the daytime and dances in the night-time... we'd pay to go in.

Fighting between US and Australian troops

Loving it. I seen, when I was down in Melbourne, seen a couple of big fights, down in Young and Jackson's corner. I happened to be near, just walking on to the corner opposite Flinders station that's Young and Jackson's corner, to there.

There was quite a number of Australian soldiers, and there was Yanks everywhere, and all of a sudden, there was fighting going on the corner and it lasted for twenty minutes or half an hour. Fair dinkum fights they were.

The Yanks and the soldiers, there wasn't many Air Force chaps about, but for whatever reason, there was either sixth division or ninth division chaps in Melbourne, and those Yanks had to come down from the Philippines or somewhere, on R and R leave. They were fleshed with money. Taking the girls out by taxis everywhere, but if we had a girl, we had to get in the train and go.

The girls, of course, loved the Yanks taking them about, spending money on taxis and all that type of thing. I got up, get out of the road. I'd have enough of that. The Military Police arrived in good numbers I remember it, but it took them a while to calm things down, I tell you.

Troop train to Townsville

The train ended up in Townsville. It took us over a week to get there. We went to Sydney and up to Rocklea and Brisbane and spent a night or two there. Of course, we had to change trains, a different size track, you know, on the interstate there.

We went up there and we got up to North Queensland and it was raining and raining and raining, and we got to a place called Home Hill, and the train couldn't go any further because of flood. In Home Hill there was a little butcher shop and a hotel. The hotel was like a big house, and they put shutters up there, and you stood on the footpath and brought something out that was how the hotel was, and a blacksmith shop and a couple of houses like that.

Of course, you imagine a troop train pulling up with hundreds of us Army chaps and everything on it and nothing to buy. The baker's shop was bought out in a snap, and we were there for two days. The first day, unfortunate of course, but somehow, they brought up food done up in a paper bag... some sandwiches and an apple or something like that; and that's how they got our meal up to us at Home Hill, in the flood, up in North Queensland.

All those things are experience to a small-town boy like me. Just sit in the carriage where your seat was, and that was it. Yeah. In the city, one had centre aisle there and a lavatory down at the bottom, and that was it. That compartment like that ... four people sat each side as you went down the...I never seen a fight, there on the train, but we had a few arguments and we were put on there, we didn't have much to read.

The newspaper went round until it got very ragged, I tell you. We didn't have anything we could do. That was just it, where we were in traveling. I'm talking about me, I didn't know where I was going. They didn't tell you where you were going. They were, "Okay, well this group, you're going up there by train. You'll be a met up there, in a certain place.

Travelling through the Coral Sea

We weren't told where we were going or anything in them times, "You're going on board the boat," and that's it. We didn't know until we got there. It took us, a big experience, I tell you what. We went out through the channel, and so forth, and we met more boats, a convoy out there.

There was a couple of big American cruisers out there, on the outside of us, and a lot of other smaller craft... Australian, I don't know what you'd call them, smaller vessels, there... and it got very rough going up through the Coral Sea. Oh Geez, the bloody boat was going… But we survived, and further on ... though I don't know fair dinkum or not, we had submarine alert that the boat stopped.

The engine stopped in the boat, and we were told before-hand if we had an alert that we were just to stand still and breathe, that's all, and no noise. You couldn't tap anything or anything, of course, sound travels in water. We had the ... I don't know what you call the smaller boats, Australian, they were fast. They were zooming 'round. They'd drop depth charges further up along the line. The water went spraying up, and so forth, I think it could have been fair dinkum, when those things were happening, yeah. We're like that for ... oh... an hour at least, from memory. And then things started in the boat, then and we were off, and everything. This was up above the North of the Coral Sea.

Life aboard a ship

Sitting on the deck with me back towards the hold, and of course, when this started, the ship was closed, you had to stay where you are. There was a number of us there, sitting with our back to there, and we could just see in that direction with who knows what going on that you couldn't see.

There's a big boat, what they call a Liberty boat, had brought troops out to the Philippines from Sydney, from America and then come down to Townsville to get supplies for itself and took us aboard. It was a new time, and it went down on the first deck, and the second deck was accommodation and right down on the third deck were showers and toilets, very deep-like.

Hammocks, side by side like this and you put your kit bag there and stand there, and get in the hammock. That's all the room we had. It was hot. It was humid inside. They had certain circulations, but it was very humid and it's one of those things you sort of got used to. If you went to sleep you didn't know what was going on, yeah.

We ate in sixes. They had a small mess up near the bridge, down underneath, and we went there. They had passengers inside the boat, of course, to go along like this and there was a number of holds coming from... you only had that area, as I say. You were allowed to go up on deck for twenty minutes or half an hour and then come back down and let a few more go. You couldn't all go up."

Landing and trading with Americans

We packed in there and away we go. It had a driver and a chap in charge, and when we got into a certain place, we could see land. The chap said, "This is as far as we go. When we put the ramp down, you're not right in there. You'll find out." Previous to that, the American's had put down a big barrage and they shot down all the palm trees that were growing around there... about this far off the ground. A lot of them fell in the water.

The LCIs couldn't get into the shore, they put the ramp down on the head of the coconut palms, they were out of the bush. Okay, the ramps down, and we had to get down... and go into shore... it'd be from about here to the other side of the room there, they were fairly old trees, the trunks about this big. Of course, the chap, behind me ... I wasn't doing too well. We had a full pack on and he pulled my haversack down and I sort of went half down and he went down, in the water.

It was ... I laugh about it now, but I wasn't bloody laughing about it then. "Down in the water. Come on you chaps. Come on you chaps" the sergeants saying, "Get it back up there." We thought... we didn't know what was going to happen or happening. All this on the shore. Us rookies, you know, got to shore. These stumps they were still hot from the day before when this happened.

Speaker 2: From the barrage?

Yeah. They fell in there. They were still smoking a bit, like the heat off them, all jagged and everything. The barrage took everything about this high... the ground was kind of like this, then up on a hill, on a plateau, all on that low country, we were based on Americans, so it was Americans all there then. These Americans come round hunting for bottles of beer. They'd trade you a bottle of beer for a carton of cigarettes. Oh yes, they'd do a deal.

Anyhow... I found me legs and so forth, and we were able to go to the American canteen. Where they had watches and lollies and ... just like home, before the war, you know? Here they are in the American canteen. We had nothing. We didn't even have a canteen in the unit I was with, and this was jolly good. We made good use of it."